revise my original manuscript. 3

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James Li

WRIT 1A

Nov. 16th, 2018

Revised Draft

Phone Less, Talk More

Sitting in a Starbucks cafe, it is easy to see people with phones glued to their hands. Instead

of drinking coffee and talking about daily topics, people seem to be more interested in their phones.

They tend to pay little attention to what others are talking about. Therefore, the relationships

between people get worse. Did electronic devices take away people’s conversation? People’s daily

social activities are showing the fact that smartphones do pose negative effects on our social

relationship. So we, in order to lead a better life, should reasonably control phone time.

The appearance of smartphones could be one of the most significant inventions in this

century. It is hard to envision a world without smartphones in this era. The smartphone has

gradually become a symbol for convenience, entertainment, and communication. However,

contemporary inventions, such as smartphones, are complex and cannot be simply classified as “a

good invention” or “an awful invention”. The problem might be multifactorial and needs people to

analyse before giving out an arbitrary verdict. On the one hand, some psychologists, including Jean

M. Twenge and Sherry Turkle, think that phones pose negative effects on people’s daily

communication. On the other hand, some other people, such as early education researcher Lisa

Guernsey, stand on the side that phones would be more beneficial than detrimental.

Some researchers deem that smartphones did not change people’s life negatively. Guernsey

interviewed her daughter— who is also a member of contemporary generation and also uses

phones. Her daughter stated that phones did not change her social activity. She and her friends still

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hung out and engaged in all kinds of parties (2). What Guernsey contends was that using

smartphones would not pose much bad effects on teens. It changes the way how teens live, but not

negatively. Moreover, Guernsey has also pointed out that there does exist some correlations

between phone use and depression, but this relationship might not be cause-and-effect. Guernsey

used the example of obesity and television time to verify her point. Watching television might not

be the cause of gaining weight. The fact might be that obese people might like watching television

more than other people do (3). However, the problem in her statement was that she merely took her

daughter as her example, and her daughter might accidentally be the exception in this generation—

who hangs out and attends parties. And the social facts manifest that nowadays the number of

lonely teens are skyrocketing. The general trend of teens is being lonely and having less social

activities.

Today’s teens hang out less than people in the past do. Research has shown that phones are

gradually taking away people’s willingness to hang out (Twenge, 11). An increasing number of

teens prefer to stay on their phones and submerge themselves into the imaginary world— the

internet. In the long term, this phenomenon has jeopardised people’s social relationships. To be

more specific, Twenge pointed out that “today’s teens are also less likely to date” (9). Dating is one

of the symbolistic social behaviour between teen boys and girls. The decreasing trend in hanging-

out, especially in dating events, clearly shows the negative effect of phones on teenagers’ social

relationships. And less hanging-out also leads to less communication.

Instead of talking face to face, more adolescents choose to communicate via social media,

which makes people less empathic. As Turkle suggested, communicating via phones makes people

less empathic than communicating face to face (2). Sometimes, without seeing others’ body

languages or facial signals, it is easy to hurt them inadvertently. Turkle discussed a study conducted

by psychologist Sara Konrath that data showed “40 percent decline in empathy among college

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students, with most of the decline taking place after 2000” (2). In other words, since the appearance

of smartphones, college students’ empathy has declined to a large extent. And being less empathic

is fatal for their social relationships. Turkle took a middle school girl as an example. A girl who

tried to exclude a classmate from a school event was not even able to comprehend “the signal that

the other student was hurt” (3). With less empathy, people become indifferent and have less friends.

Not only communicating via phones would jeopardise people’s social relationship, as Turkle wrote,

but merely putting a phone on the table while having face to face conversations would lower the

conversations’ quality (2). When a person puts the phone on the desk, he would be somehow

distracted by the phone. Therefore he would pay less attention to other people’s facial expressions

and make less eye contacts with others. The eye is the window of one’s heart. Sometimes we can

tell from people’s eyes that they feel uncomfortable even if they do not say that. If we put our

attention on phones, we could easily miss the feelings conveyed in someone’s eyes. This, in

Turkle’s terms, would make people less empathic. And being less empathic is also one aspect of

phone’s negative influences on people’s social relationship.

Both laissez faire route— indulging youngsters using phones without any control— and

wrenching phones out of adolescents’ hands, according to Guernsey, are not promising solutions

(1). If teens continue using phones without any reasonable control, their social relationships will

deteriorate. However, if phones are banned, the convenience of phones would gone as well.

Guernsey suggested that we should listen to contemporary youngsters patiently instead of

overgeneralising them as a generation ruined by smartphones. Despite some bad effects of phones

and internet, Guernsey’s daughter believes that “it is also through the internet, on sites such as

Tumblr, where teens often find comfort and can engage in discussions of how they are feeling” (3).

So we should also think of the good sides of internet and smartphones. Internet can also make

people feel connected and warm. Hence the right attitude towards phones is simultaneously

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considering the good side— convenience, entertainment, and some warmth— and the bad side—

deterioration of social relationship and causation of depression. To conclude, we should use phones

only at appropriate time.

Admittedly, phones can provide us with a host of convenience. But at the meantime, we

should notice that our contemporary generation hangs out less and uses phones all the time. Using

phones while communicating with others face to face is both impolite and detrimental to

adolescents' empathy. Thus, for the quality of conversations and, moreover, social relationship,

putting phones into pockets while talking could be a nice choice.

Works Cited

Guernsey, Lisa. “Don’t Take Away Your Teen’s Phone.” https://slate.com/technology/2017/08/

smartphones-havent-destroyed-a-generation.html

Turkle, Sherry. “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk.” New York Times 26 Sep. 2015.

Twenge, Jean M.. “Has Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic Sep. 2017.